–Bozo REPE (University of Ljubljana) Impact of the Artistic Production about World War II on Yugoslav Society and on the Disintegration of the State

–Chantal KESTELOOT (SOMA/CEGES Brussels): War in arts and fiction (and its impact on European collective memories in the 19th and 20th centuries

–Dieter POHL (Universität Klagenfurt, Institut für Geschichte): World War II in East European Film 1955-1985

–Martijn EICKHOFF(Radboud University Nijmegen): The legacies of the 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere' in archaeology: the Japanese Borobudur-excavation (Java; Autumn 1943) as a case study

–Alya AGLAN (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): Representations of war through the joint reading of two novels: French Suite Irene Nemirovsky (2002) and The Silence of the Sea Vercors (1942).

–David ULBRICH (Rogers State University): Cultural Constructions and Media Representations of the U.S. Marine Corps during the Pacific War

–Bernd MARTIN (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg): From the Pacific War to Good Neighbourliness

–Fumitaka KUROSAWA (Tokyo Women’s Christian University): Reconsideration of Perceptions of Modern History in Post-war Japan

–Peter ROMIJN (NIOD, Amsterdam): The Limits of Military Justice - the failure of persecuting crimes of war committed by Dutch troops in Indonesia, 1946-1949

–Hu DEKUN (Council of Chinese Association for the WWII): The Legacy of World War II: An Investigation on the Early Post War Territorial Polices of Japan and the Cause of the Territorial Disputes in East Asia

–Kiyofumi KATO (The National Institute of Japanese Literature, Tokyo): The Soviet Entry into the Pacific War and the Establishment of a New Order in Northeast Asia: Japanese Repatriation in International Politics

–Joan BEAUMONT (Australian National University) The politics of burying dead in Asia after World

DATE

SUMMARY

The Committee convened its own conference within the 21st International Congress of the Historical Sciences in Amsterdam on 25-26 August 2010.

PROGRAM

Comparative Perspectives

The events leading to and arising from the Second World War, both in its European and Pacific theaters, span two decades. Fascist and imperial projects of territorial expansion and colonial domination, the exportation of political and ideological models, the reconstruction of defeated nations under the supervision of their victors, took various forms, with different levels of constraints and violence inflicted. Occupation of vast territories and areas, and even of entire nations by foreign armies and civilian authorities has been, a central constellation of the international order of the 1930s and 1940s. To a greater extent even than during and after the First World War, the post-Second World War order was determined by experiences shaped by foreign occupation: ideological commitments and affiliations, economic exploitation, social and cultural deprivation, population displacement, and resistance. Occupation delegitimated certain political regimes and vindicated others, thereby conditioning the emergence of new nation states: the independence of former colonies, the adoption of post-fascist regimes by a communist or liberal-parliamentarian system of government, and the exacerbation of national and ethnic conflicts. A common discussion on the nature and impact of the experience of occupation therefore addresses the central ambition of the International Committee for the History of the Second World War to encourage the study of these events in their widest chronological and geographical contexts.

The conference will focus on three main themes:

• Occupation: its definition, nature in different war zones and status in international law.

• The impact of occupation on civilians population

• The impact of occupation on the legitimacy of former political authorities, national and resistance movements.

In each of the panels, the organisers encourage comparisons between the European, Atlantic and the Pacific theaters of war.

Contributors:

Dr. Tanja Penter: Local memory on war, German occupation and Soviet postwar experiences in the Donbass region – results of an oral history project (2001-2007)